


painted lines

by commanderofraccoons



Category: Mean Girls (2004), Mean Girls - Richmond/Benjamin/Fey
Genre: Awkward Conversations, F/F, Prompt Fill, i wrote this in between classes i can't believe, post spring fling but still junior year, soft, you can tell i know nothing about painting sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-23
Updated: 2019-04-23
Packaged: 2020-01-25 14:19:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,394
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18576217
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/commanderofraccoons/pseuds/commanderofraccoons
Summary: Janis was standing there, frowning, holding a bag of what Regina assumed was art supplies.“Why are you in here?”orRegina admires Janis's art.





	painted lines

**Author's Note:**

> prompt: "regina seeing janis's art". i took this and kind of ran with it (and literally wrote it an actual hour before my next class), so if it seems a little rushed, that's why.

She wasn’t sure she’d ever actually been in the art room before. In fact, she hadn’t even taken an art course during high school. The trick was to substitute them with gym and miraculously graduate with an undeserved art credit.

 

Still, the cafeteria proved to be too much for her right now. Her back was throbbing, her spinal halo was hindering any real movement, and her dose of medication was much lower than she thought it should be. She’d been cleared by her doctor to attend school again after Spring Fling, and though she was originally relieved to return, she was regretting it now.

 

Everything was just _too_ much. The stares that she used to revel in were more pitying now, and, like, she got it. She was hit by a bus, and most of her class watched it happen. Apparently, it was more traumatic for them than it was for her.

 

Gretchen would be looking for her by now, wanting to bring her back to their new lunch table. She shut the door behind her, knowing she’d never look for her there. The room was exactly how she’d expect it to be; brushes sitting in cups of water near the window sill, easels littering the room, colorful artwork framed around the walls— some of them just taped up. There was a signup sheet in the middle of a bulletin board across the room, and Regina picked out both Janis and Shane’s names at the very top.

 

She tried to shake her head, wincing at the pang in her spine at the motion. Shane Oman staying friends with Janis Sarkisian over the last few years baffled her. He used to mention her often, talking about some new painting or other she did in class that day. Typically, Regina would’ve forced him to change the subject, and the first time he brought her up, she suspected that he thought the same thing. Regina stayed quiet, though, and listened to him go on about the latest award Janis received or about her next art show. It was nice, in a way. Like she still had a little window into Janis’s world. A world where they were still young and very much best friends. A simpler world.

 

There was a line of easels to her right, and she realized after a moment that Janis and Shane’s were right next to each other. She let out a long sigh, taking in the painting of the putting green with the white golf ball on the other side. His initials were poorly scrawled toward the bottom of the canvas, but Regina would’ve been able to easily pick out his work. Shane never shut up about golf.

 

The one next to it, however, she knew was Janis’s. There was no signature, but Regina presumed it was because she wasn’t finished with it yet. Knowing Janis, she’d probably be doing the final touches for a while, expecting nothing but the very best for herself with her art. It was an incredibly realistic portrait of Janis’s friend— she couldn’t remember his name— mid-laugh with a ridiculous hat on his head and tap shoes on his feet.

 

What most people didn’t know was that Janis always had artistic talent. The rumored art therapy, which Regina knew was true, might’ve helped, but Janis… well, Regina had said many things about Janis over the years, it’s true, but she’d never denied her talent. After all, it used to be _her_ who Janis was drawing like this in her sketchbook, and she couldn’t push the bubbling envy down in time before she heard the door to the room swinging open.

 

Janis was standing there, frowning, holding a bag of what Regina assumed was art supplies.

 

“Why are you in here?”

 

She really didn’t think she’d even speak to her. A few months ago, she probably wouldn’t have— just do whatever she had to before sprinting out. But they talked a few times since Spring Fling, and Regina had apologized. It wasn’t comfortable between them, and Regina doubted that would happen for a while, but it was a start.

 

“What? Not feeling the new lunch table?” Janis moved over to the window, placing her bag in a specific spot to the left.

 

“No, it’s not that,” Regina managed, her back suddenly feeling more sore in that moment. Cady decided all of her friends should sit together for the rest of the year; they hadn’t run into any problems with the new set up yet, but Regina didn’t want to cause the first rift. “My pain medication’s just wearing off. Don’t worry about it.” She turned away from her and found herself analyzing the small lines on Janis’s friend’s face.

 

_She always noticed the little things._

 

“Gretchen’s about to call the SWAT team if you don’t at least answer your phone.” She could hear footsteps behind her, and she knew that Janis was coming to stand beside her. “I mean, should I tell her you’re going home or what?”

 

Regina didn’t say anything for a moment, not wanting to acknowledge what Janis said. Of course she couldn’t slip away unnoticed. She never would’ve wanted to before.

 

“You could really do something with this, y’know?” She motioned toward the canvas. “You could get out of this town, move to a city, do what you love.” Regina shrugged, the spinal halo moving with her shoulders. “And make money doing it.”

 

She could feel Janis staring at the side of her head, and if she was able to move her neck, she would’ve.

 

“Are you sure you’re not drugged up right now?”

 

Regina laughed, the sound echoing loudly in the room. She briefly wondered if Gretchen could hear it from the hallways. “I mean, I am, yeah. Just not as much as I’d like to be.”

 

Janis walked forward, going between she and Shane’s easels and to the other side of the room. There were several pieces of art hung up near her, and Regina recognized the painting styles immediately. Some were realistic, like the one in front of her, and others were more abstract in style— though she wasn’t able to make out those ones, she still knew who did them.

 

“Shane said you won your art show a few weeks ago.” Janis’s head snapped back to her, brows furrowed. “Is that, like, were those-“

 

“Yeah, some of them were in it,” Janis interrupted, saving Regina from her inability to actually string together a sentence. “I got first.”

 

“Don’t you always?”

 

Janis’s eyes narrowed. “How would you know that?”

 

Regina groaned, becoming a little grumpier without her medication. “Duvall says your name over announcements, like, every day. Go Lions, even for art.”

 

She smiled, and the sight genuinely took Regina by surprise. Janis Sarkisian hadn’t smiled at Regina George since they were both twelve years old.

 

“Well, I was just putting some stuff away in here.” Janis fiddled with one of the paintings, noticeably more nervous than before. “But I was gonna head to lunch if you wanted to come. Or something.”

 

Regina looked away from the painting of Janis’s friend— Damian, she finally remembered— and saw the girl looking back at her with an unreadable expression. She had no reason to be envious of Janis painting Damian, but, in that moment, Regina decided she wanted to be her inspiration, too. They could work at being friends again, especially with the others being their occasional buffer. She was making an effort to change, and she _would_. What details of Regina could Janis immortalize onto paper?

 

“Yeah, I just needed a minute. Sitting will probably help, anyway.”

 

Janis fixed a crooked painting on the wall of what looked like a vagina with teeth before making her way back toward her, and Regina felt her right eyebrow involuntarily raise. _Don’t say anything. Be nice_.

 

“Text Gretchen, please.” Janis moved past her, and Regina hesitatingly broke away from the painting to follow her. “We’re friends now, and I really don’t want her collapsing of stress.”

 

Regina pulled out her phone with a ghost of a smile on her lips. “You’re gonna have to get used to that.”

 

Janis held the door open for her, and, in that moment, shoving her phone back into her purse, Regina made it her mission for Janis to paint her. Damian could take the backseat for a little while.

**Author's Note:**

> you can send prompts: kleksuh.tumblr.com


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